ABSTRACT
In analyzing the Mongolian legend of the Chinese uprising against the Yuan regime, this chapter examines the written version translated by Henry Serruys since it is more elaborate. It investigates the medley of fact and fiction in the Mongolian legend by exploring the historical basis of three interrelated episodes. First, in the reign of Toghon-temur every ten Chinese families were supervised by one Mongol lama who treated them as slaves and abused their children. Second, in these families when a girl was about to marry, the lamas took and abused her, saying that they were first taking the primices. Third, the Chinese, so angered at the ill treatment, conspired on the fifth of the fifth month of the forty-second year of Toghon-temur to kill all the lamas and destroy the Mongol regime. There are several variants in the Chinese legend of the spontaneous uprising led by Chu Yuan-chang to exterminate the Mongols and overthrow their dynasty.
